notes on the alloys-

[JHertzman@xxxxxxx]

In AD7-198 Jaap Bouma in the Netherlands asked about similarities and
differences between the older style of wheel used on the GTV-6 (from 1980
through 1984) and the "Turbina" style as used on the 105 cars in the early
seventies and on some Alfettas in the mid-seventies, and asks whether
Campagnolo went back to the 105/115 design for the six cylinder cars?

The short answer is "no".

Before I got my fuller reply half-done Dana Loomis answered, and added his
observations on Campagnolo and Cromodora to what had gone before. I will patch
in what is left of my notes. Dana's observations on the finish standards of
the later Campagnolos is significant. There is an old jibe that an Italian car
manufacturer would never use a steel pressing where cast aluminum was a
practical alternative. There is some truth to that. Casting, whether bronze,
aluminum, gold or some other metal, and whether sand-casting or investment-
casting (like lost-wax) is fairly low-tech, not capital-intensive, and very
amenable to making individual parts or relatively small production runs, while
steel pressings require powerful presses and relatively costly dies and are
thus economically practical only for larger production runs. Injection casting
of alloys also requires expensive molds and equipment capable of pumping
molten metal under high pressure- 1,500 tons is the figure Cromodora gives-
("Per pressofondere le nostre ruote disponiamo 6 macchine da 1500 tonnellate
di potenza di chiusura") which puts it in a different league than the average
mediaeval bell-foundry or renaissance sculpture studio. The finish differences
in both wheels and bicycle components mark the evolution from artisanal craft
production into fully contemporary industrial production.

Two observations on the Turbinas: 
(1) Light alloy wheels on cars of this class became a fad, and a status
symbol, in the USA appreciably earlier than in Europe. Not one Turbina appears
in Brizio Pignaca's excellent and thorough Italian book on the Giulia coupes;
they all have steel wheels. Not one appears on a production 1750 or 2000 of
any sort in Fusi or in d'Amico-Tabucchi; again, all have the standard steel
wheels. Again, in the "Brooklands" series of compilations of road tests of the
Spiders, Giulia coupes and Berlinas- five in all, comprising well over one
hundred assorted road tests- every alloy wheel which shows up is in a USA road
test. The wheels were optional everywhere, but they were sold here.  
(2) Aftermarket wheel manufacturers would try to create distinctive designs
which would be associated with their company, but car manufacturers would try
to create distinctive designs which would be more broadly associated by
customers with the top ends of their entire product lines, and which might be
outsourced to several different wheel-makers, blurring that distinction.

In the case of the "Turbina", the design appears to have originated with Alfa
for the Montreal, then offered in the narrower width on the 2000 cars, used
with the different bolt circle and offset and fully open blades on the
Alfetta, and also offered as an option on several versions of the Alfasud, the
Giulietta Nuova and the Alfa 6. I don't know the size on the Alfasud variant,
but the Alfa 6 variant carried 195/70 x 14 tires, the size used on the
Montreal, but with the 5 x 98 mm bolt pattern used on GTV-6, so there would
have been at least five different wheels with the same general appearance.
Cromodora also produced an aftermarket Turbina for the 1600/1750/2000 Alfas,
the CD 46, which had enough minor but clear differences in aesthetic
embellishments that it could be easily distinguished by the knowledgeable.

Alfa Romeo did the same sort of cross-platform use of a visually distinctive
design in different sizes, offsets, and bolt-patterns in several other cases.
The style which was used on the "Gold" Milano in the USA was used on most
European 75s, including the three liter, in a 14" size and in a 13" size on
the 75 Turbodiesel and on some Alfasuds with a four-bolt circle. The style
used on the top-of-the-line 164 had been used in a four-bolt 14" version on
the 33. The style associated with the infamous metric Michelins on the '86
GTV-6 was used in smaller versions with five or four bolts on Giulietta Nuovas
and Alfasuds; the type used on Milano Platinum and 1985 GTV-6 was used on
various four and five bolt sizes on the 33 and the 90. And so forth. A few
styles appeared on only one model; the base 164 wheel is unique to the 164. 

Before the use of alloy wheels as a distinctive styling feature- jewelry for
the machine- became really popular in the early seventies, alloy wheels were
usually quite similar to steel wheels in form. The clearest possible cases are
the Alfas from the Giulietta Zagato through the GTA, on which the overall
shape and the size, shape, and number of holes on the alloy wheels were
virtually identical to the standard steel wheels. The alloy wheels were used
for their weight advantage and not as a styling feature, and the competition
variants of production cars were intended to look very much like the
production cars. The Giulia T.I. Super, the racing version of the original
Giulia T.I. sedan and the later Giulia Super sedan, had light alloy wheels (by
Campagnolo) which were fitted with the same chromium-plated steel hubcaps as
all of the other Giulia sedans of the mid-sixties; a casual spectator would
not know they were not the standard wheel on the standard car. The alloy
wheels on a GTA Junior looked exactly the same as the steel wheels on a Sprint
GT Veloce or a Duetto, neither of which had alloy wheels available as an
option.

Three or four things happened to change this. One, cast alloy wheels replaced
wire wheels on pure competition cars, for reasons of weight and strength, and
nobody had any aesthetic preconceptions about what they should look like. Two,
small specialist manufacturers of sports cars (of which Italy had many, the
"Etceterini") had companies like Campagnolo make special components, including
wheels, and the distinctive wheels became associated with hot cars for the
people who wore driving shoes and string-back gloves to the cafes, and an
aftermarket for distinctive wheels for such cars as Alfas and Fiats developed.
Three, similarly distinctive wheels became popular on show cars, where the
important thing was to catch the eye, not necessarily to have the best
possible weight/strength ratio. Four, the distinctive wheels became a selling
point as sporting/luxury accouterments for the production market, to visibly
differentiate the high-end cars from the base models which were essentially
identical. Where it had been important for the alloy wheel on the GTA to look
like the steel wheel on the GT, it was now important for the alloy wheel on
the more expensive Spider to be obviously very different from the steel wheel
on the less expensive Spider which was mechanically identical in every way.
The wolf in sheep's clothing has been traded for wolf's clothing for the
sheep.

Those with a sardonic sense of humor will note that on the last Spiders sold
in the USA the mid-level car had a relatively traditional alloy five-spoke
"Daytona" variant, the most expensive model had the "phone dial" style which
had previously been used only in Europe on the 33 sedans, and the cheapest
Spider had steel wheels with plastic hubcaps which were perfect copies of the
top-of- the-line alloys. Cute, huh? 

John H.

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